Tommaso Minardi (1787–1871) was born in Faenza in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, where he studied drawing with the printmaker Giuseppe Zauli. Zauli imbued Minardi with his enthusiasm for 15th-century Italian art and introduced him to his large collection of engravings after the work of Flemish artists such as Adriaen van Ostade. Minardi was also strongly influenced by the Neo-classical painter Felice Giani, who ran a large workshop in Faenza.
In 1803 Minardi went to Rome on an annual stipend provided by Count Virgilio Cavina of Faenza, and he also received financial assistance from the Congregazione di S Gregorio. He was given the use of Giani’s studio and through him met Vincenzo Camuccini who, with Antonio Canova, dominated the artistic establishment in Rome at that time. In Rome Minardi's style gradually moved away from strict Neoclassicism towards the Purism associated with the German Nazarene movement, members of which were in Rome from around 1810.
In 1818 Canova proposed Minardi as Director of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Perugia, a post that he held from 1819 to 1821. In 1822 he was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, a position he held until 1858. Minardi was an influential teacher and lecturer, and at the Accademia Minardi opposed the formal and rational theories propounded by academic artists. He was deeply influenced by the German Nazarenes, who were in Rome from 1810, and became a leading figure of the Italian Purismo movement in the 1820s. The movement rejected Neoclassicism and sought to return to the formal values of the early Renaissance Italian art, as well as advocating a closer observation of nature, imbued with a deep sense of religiosity.
In Rome Minardi was also involved in the inspection and preservation of historic buildings as a member of the Commissione Centrale Antichità e Belle Arti. Later in life his output declined and his pupils were carrying out his designs. He died in Rome in 1871.
Minardi's works can be found in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, the Wellcome Collection, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
